Between Two Fires

by Mark Noce

  Most of the others have already gathered around the large oaken table, the members of North Wales and the Free Cantrefs among them. Morgan and Malcolm arrive last. I make sure to sit just to the left of my husband. On my other side, Belin’s sons, Rhun and Iago, nod cordially to me, both men silent as their white-haired father. Directly across the tabletop, Lady Olwen and Artagan whisper in one another’s ears, every so often glancing my way. I fight the urge to squirm in my seat. To the others, I probably seem as out of place at this gathering as a sheep amongst wolves. Nonetheless, I hold myself erect in my seat. For once, my stepmother’s lessons in propriety have some use as I channel my nervous twitches into sitting with perfect ladylike posture. My hairline begins to bead with sweat, but I dare not move to wipe it away lest one of the others notice.

  Morgan calls the council to order as he raises his voice.

  “I’ve asked you all here so that we might gather all the Welsh might together and unite our forces against further Saxon invasions.”

  Before my husband can finish, Cadwallon bangs the table with the flat of his meaty hand. Morgan pauses to glare at the fat monarch.

  “Something troubling you, Lord Cadwallon?”

  “And I suppose you think you should lead this grand alliance against our foes?”

  “My kingdom and my armies are now the largest in all Wales.”

  Morgan glances my way, silently reminding them that Dyfed’s spearmen now number among his troops. All eyes rest on me, but every face might as well belong to a mask. All nine members of the council remain silent. Belin the Old raises his gravelly voice.

  “Our enemies are likewise divided, splintered by their own success, rivaling each other.”

  “Aye!” Cadwallon seconds. “West Saxon tribes and the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, under King Penda, sometimes fight one another.”

  “And sometimes they join hands as allies,” Morgan retorts. “If the West Saxons and Penda combine forces, they will easily outnumber us. All of us.”

  Cadwallon stands, pushing back his chair with his wide thighs.

  “I can fight Saxons without your help and I’ll be damned before I bend a knee to any man here!”

  The entire table erupts into overlapping arguments. Cadwallon shakes his fist at Morgan. Malcolm and Artagan exchange curses from their ends of the table. Olwen speaks cordially with Rhun and Iago, all of them nonetheless frowning at one another. Only King Belin and I remain silent. The old king looks at me with his pale-blue eyes before raising his hands. Gradually, the other members at the table cease talking so that the old man may speak.

  “Queen Branwen of Dyfed has not yet voiced her thoughts. I would hear what she has to say.”

  “My lord?” I reply, eyeing King Belin with a raised eyebrow.

  Morgan’s eyes bore into me like hot coals. His order to listen and not speak in the council still rings in my ears. I’ve a sinking feeling Old Belin may have guessed as much and perhaps hopes to throw my husband or me off balance with his supposedly innocent question. I have to say something to make this meeting more peaceable, yet at the same time not offend my husband, nor reveal our intention of weeding out the traitor in our midst. I blurt out the first words that come to mind.

  “I think the best way to kill a frog is to cook it slowly.”

  The other noblemen exchange looks, their blank expressions slowly giving way to grins and guffaws. Cadwallon bangs his fist on the table in mirth and even Old Belin flashes a smile. Everyone’s shoulders relax as they recline in their chairs. Lady Olwen leans across the table, her violet-blue irises fixed on me.

  “Is that some witch’s spell, your ladyship?”

  “It’s something my mother used to say. One of the few things I remember about her.”

  My throat stops up a moment, and I push back the water behind my eyes. I can’t recall the last time I mentioned Mother to anyone, let alone strangers. I cannot let them see this part of me, so I lower my voice in order to make it steady.

  “Many a countrywoman may cook a frog caught from the bogs,” I begin. “If she throws it in a boiling pot, the creature hops out, knowing it’s in peril. But if she places the frog in lukewarm water, and gradually heats the cauldron with a growing fire, the creature will be cooked to death.”

  “How informative,” Prince Malcolm mumbles dismissively.

  “It is meant to be,” I retort, my gaze boring into him. “We are all frogs, gentlemen and ladies. If the Saxons invade with a large army, we might unite against them, but instead they peck away at our separate kingdoms year by year, whittling us away one realm at a time. All Wales is a frog being slowly cooked to death, only we refuse to see it.”

  Silence pervades the room. Morgan puts his hand under the table and softly squeezes my palm with a smile. He approves of my words. I nearly smile back until Sir Artagan leans across the table toward me, an earnest expression on his usually roguish face.

  “So what would you have us do, Queen Branwen?”

  “Heed my husband and exploit the great weakness of the Saxons. They fear our unity, for it spells their doom.”

  Artagan and Morgan lock stares, neither one revealing anything with their expressions. I wonder whether my words have made an impression or if these two antagonists merely play chess with one another in their minds. Cadwallon takes up the conversation again, both he and Prince Malcolm debating the finer points of a possible alliance, mostly in disagreement, but neither with heated overtones as before. Morgan and Artagan remain silent, both watching one another while their kinsmen continue the debate. The brothers Rhun and Iago occasionally speak up, insisting on their own interests just like the other barons. Their father, Old Belin, coolly watches me. I pretend not to see the white-haired king as he evaluates me with a sharp eye.

  When the bell tower tolls at the approach of the next hour, King Morgan adjourns the gathering in order to resume on the morrow. No one has agreed to anything in particular, but at least no blades have been drawn. Everyone here knows that we share a common enemy in the Saxon hordes, yet so much remains unsaid amongst these calculating men. I doubt these lords say or do anything without ulterior purposes.

  As we exit the chamber, Lady Olwen accompanies me out the doorway, not saying a word. She merely looks me over before making a slight bow. I nod back and watch her go, her dark skirts trailing after her down the long stone archways. As the only other woman from the meeting, I wish I might follow her and share her thoughts. Perhaps over a cup of warm mint tea by the fireside. Then I remind myself that she comes from the Free Cantrefs, and probably opposes the alliance my husband is trying to form. Graceful or not, she may even be the one who plotted my capture by Saxon raiders. Anyone in the council chamber might have. My shoulders sag when I realize I’m no closer to discerning the truth than before.

  When I return to my solar, neither Morgan nor Malcolm is there. The two probably sequestered themselves somewhere so that others might not hear their plots, not even me. Rowena pours me a decanter of mulled wine, clearing her throat as she motions toward the far end of the bedchamber.

  I give a start, seeing a child standing beside my bed. Arthwys.

  A little elfin boy, he seems entranced by the rouge coverlets where my husband and I sleep. I smile at Arthwys, but he does not look back. He speaks without moving his gaze from the bedsheets.

  “Mother and Father used to share this bed.”

  I cough up the wine in my throat, wiping the spittle on my sleeve. Darkness begins to creep in through the tower window beside me, and the evening breeze raises the fine hairs along my arms. Without moving a muscle, Arthwys shifts his gaze upon me.

  “You are not Mother,” he says in a stern, eerily calm voice. “This is not your bed.”

  “Child.” I try to smile back. “Your father and I have married. You and I are now … family.”

  “This is not where you sleep! This was her bed! It’s not yours!”

  His calm, changeling face runs with tears. My heart contracts like a fis
t while my eyes glaze over. His voice sounds so much like my own might have when my stepmother first wed Father. Only now I stand in my stepmother’s place. It’s as though I’ve stepped through the looking glass, my life turned inside out. Arthwys moans into his hands as he scampers out of the room, his muffled cries fading down the turret steps. I reach after the boy, trying to think up some words of comfort, but he has already gone. Poor child. What can I say? Life does not always turn out as we think it ought.

  The clang of crockery from the kitchens downstairs announces the approach of supper. Every visiting lord and knight will attend the feast, and doubtlessly Morgan will expect his queen to attend and play hostess. I draw in a deep breath, the final gasp before the plunge.

  It still feels as though I am merely pretending to be a queen, that some other woman will appear from the shadows and tell me to return to my father’s castle. Rounding the turret steps, I wring my palms absentmindedly, dreading having to play lady-of-the-castle. I know about as much about being a host as my old stepmother knows of books. Which is to say, nothing at all.

  I bump into a man on the dim stairs, apologizing for my clumsiness. My eyes suddenly widen. Artagan stands before me, his hair dripping wet and his chest bare.

  He wears nothing but a damp towel wrapped around his middle. Almost against my will, my gaze darts to his muscular chest, his skin pink from the baths. I look away, trying to sidle around him on the narrow stairwell. The rogue grins at my discomfort.

  “Queen Branwen, you have me at a disadvantage. I’m not quite dressed for the banquet yet.”

  “You must be lost,” I reply, averting my gaze. “This turret leads to my private chambers.”

  He shrugs sheepishly.

  “Easy to get lost in such a large palace. But your Roman bathhouse is well worth the journey. Baths are the one good thing the Romans brought to Wales.”

  His ever-cocky grin starts to wear on my nerves.

  “Hmm, I didn’t realize folk in the Free Cantrefs bathe at all,” I lie. “You could have fooled me.”

  I frown at the half-naked hedge knight, still trying to get around him without tripping down a flight of narrow stairs. Will this shameless vagabond ever let me pass? What is his game, showing up on my tower steps nearly undressed? Morgan would have this brigand’s head if he could see us now. Despite my attempts at indignant propriety, Artagan refuses to turn wroth with me, merely smiling as he lets me pass.

  “Pardon me for keeping you, my lady. I’ve never a dull moment in your company.”

  I roll my eyes as I brush past him, my thoughts still muddled by glimpses of his brawny forearms and bare, slightly freckled shoulders. I quickly shake such images from my head. A married Christian woman should only see her husband so underdressed. Leave it to a Free Cantref ruffian like Artagan to wander the halls like that, wet and naked as a savage. Was he indeed lost? Or perhaps eavesdropping about the castle?

  Thankfully, I find my lady-in-waiting down the next passageway. Rowena accompanies me into the main hall, most of the guests already well into their cups and gnawing on legs of mutton served up for the occasion. Morgan remains absent, but his brother sits beside the King’s empty chair. Malcolm talks to Belin’s sons over a joint of lamb, eyeing the serving girls between bites. His wandering eye makes me cringe. Time someone got that Prince a wife. He’ll leave a dozen bastards behind in Caerwent if Morgan doesn’t find a match for his younger brother soon.

  I sit on the opposite end of the hall with Rowena as we partake of the feast. Barely a few minutes later, Artagan joins the other members of the Free Cantref delegation across the hall, his long dark hair still wet from the baths. Even under his loose tunic I can still picture his unclad, supple body. My cheeks suddenly flush hot. A few moons after my husband’s initiation of me into the bedchamber and already my mind wanders too freely upon such avenues.

  Artagan Blacksword’s strikingly blue gaze follows my every move, but fortunately his party sits far across the room. Whatever his plot may be, I wish he would leave me out of it. Cadwallon bellows gaily beside him, his pile of bones and empty wine goblets higher than anyone else’s. Lady Olwen converses with the many knights who pay her attentions throughout the night, but she never strays far from Artagan’s table.

  They must be lovers. The realization washes over me like a wave of saltwater. I cannot help but notice how she shares Artagan’s drinking cup, always putting her lips to the rim where his lips have been. Olwen keeps a hand on his forearm, coolly eyeing the serving wenches who bring him drinks. She laughs coquettishly at his jokes.

  My chest tightens, knowing I’ve never looked at Morgan with longing like that. Lady Olwen has something more precious than gold in her hands. My face flushes with heat at my own thoughts and I drown my mind in a chalice full of spiced wine. Artagan’s rough-cut looks may appeal to Lady Olwen and the serving girls, but he still wears furs like a barbarian and has a nest of wild black hair to match.

  I turn away and listen to Rowena’s gossip about the kitchen maids and their midnight trysts with guardsmen in the haystacks out behind the King’s stables. Her stories provide a welcome distraction.

  Abbot Padraig sits on the other side of me, his conversation with another cleric seeping into my ears. Even as Rowena rambles on about scullery maids taking tumbles with knights in haylofts, I cannot resist the urge to eavesdrop on the Abbot. He speaks with the bald-headed Bishop Gregory, the King’s head clergyman. The Bishop cannot mask the rising heat in his tone.

  “Nevertheless, Abbot, you should have waited to perform the ceremony here, in Caerwent!”

  “The King would not wait, Bishop, and so I obliged and wed them in the eyes of God.”

  “I crowned King Morgan in the Caerwent cathedral and I ought to have wed him and his bride here too! You overstep your place, little monk. Whence do you return to your monastery of rocks?”

  “I serve Queen Branwen and God, Bishop Gregory. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you call an audience before your liege, the King. I doubt that news of your strangely afflicted altar boys has yet reached his ears.”

  The Bishop nearly gags on his wine. Padraig continues supping his bread and broth as though nothing happened. I bite my lip to keep from giggling. No one backs Brother Padraig into a corner. Not kings nor bishops, not even the Pope himself. I wish I had half the Abbot’s poise.

  Rowena suddenly cries out beside me, her hand on my sleeve.

  The crash of crockery mingles with raised voices across the hall. I jump up from my seat while Rowena ducks behind me. Chalices and clay bowls across the feast hall clatter to the tile floors. A crowd of men tumble over upended tabletops while guardsmen try to pull the bloodied brawlers apart.

  A fight.

  At the heart of the fray, two men grapple over a fallen serving girl. Both young men swing fists at one another with the experience of veterans. I step closer to the combatants, both curious and dismayed all at once. Prince Malcolm and Artagan Blacksword have their hands at one another’s throats. So much for our hopes of peace.

  5

  Morgan enters the hall with his war-hammer in hand. He thrusts himself between the two unarmed combatants. Artagan nurses a split lip while Malcolm holds a palm up to his black eye.

  Lords and knights shout at each other, some holding their comrades back from the fight. Every guardsman in the castle tries to keep the bickering antagonists apart, but I doubt even they can prevent all these trained warriors from getting at each other’s throats. Morgan keeps a hand pressed against his brother’s chest, all the while prodding Artagan back with the head of his war-hammer.

  A lone servant girl lies on the floor between the two brawlers, clutching a bruise on her left wrist, the skin turned purple. Her disheveled sandy hair hides her face. The poor girl seems like no more than a bone disputed between two snapping dogs. Something inside me starts to boil over at the sight of this poor defenseless girl in a room full of drunken louts.

  My stepmother would doubtlessly remi
nd me that no proper lady in her right mind would intrude into such a fray, especially with more than a few hidden daggers bulging beneath every man’s tunic. But the sight of that lone bondservant huddled on the floor shames me. Am I the lady of this castle or not? Its citizens are my responsibility. If I don’t speak up, who will?

  I stride into the circle of menfolk and raise the young woman to her feet, her eyes going wide when she recognizes the thin diadem crown on my head. She curtsies, wincing as she clutches the welts on her arm. Rowena comes to my side, shooing away warriors as she might a barnyard full of roosters. The knights and lords halt their quarrel upon seeing me and the wounded girl in their midst.

  “What is your name, fair maiden?” I ask her.

  “Una, Your Grace.”

  “And who did this to you, Una?” I say, pointing at her arm.

  Every man in the hall turns silent. The fight that had been all about Artagan and Malcolm’s spat suddenly turns into a solemn trial over a wronged serving girl. Una gives the onlookers a sidelong glance, like a mouse surrounded by a herd of hungry cats. How foolish of me to ask such an open question. A servant girl dares not point a finger at men who carry blades and call themselves knights. Una lowers her eyes.

  “I tripped, my Queen. Must have banged into one of the fallen tabletops.”

  The men immediately recommence hostilities, throwing insults and a few wild fists at one another. Rowena and I draw Una aside before more guardsmen gradually pry the two sides of bickering knights apart. Artagan and Malcolm glare back at one another. If not for King Morgan and his fifty men-at-arms crowding the hall, we would have bloodshed aplenty in the very heart of Caerwent tonight.

  Rowena and I bring Una up to my solar chamber, away from the roaring din of the mead hall. Whatever the cause of the brawl between Artagan and Malcolm, Una must be at the crux of it. She remains silent while Rowena tends to her bruises with a damp washcloth. The girl has been through enough tonight already and needs no interrogation from me, but I cannot escape the nagging feeling that she knows something more. Something important enough to cause the Prince and the Blacksword to come to blows. Una bows her weary head.